Stocking and method of making the same



Get. 17, 1939. w, T' 2,176,694 I s'rocxme AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Filed Dec. 15, 1957 [5- ooooovoJ oovooooooooooo ooooooo 0000 0000000000000000000000000000o1A? INVENTOR ATTORNEY Patented Oct. 11, 1939 um'rao sures PATENT OFFICE William Tait, Wyomissing, Pa. Application December 15, 1937, Serial No. 179,889

1 Claim.

My invention relates to a stocking and the method of making the same and more particularly to a lady's stocking of the type known as full-fashioned.

As is well known, the thigh, that is, the portion of the limb beginning at the top of the knee and extending upwardly towards the hips, grows gradually thicker upwardly, and it is also well known that particularly in the case of women's 10 limbs the increase in thickness above the knee takes place at a much greater rate than it does in mens, and in a great many cases women's limbs, along the area in question, increase in thickness at a greatly accelerated rate.

15 Ordinarily, full-fashioned stockings are so made that the welt, which is intended to enclose the four or five inches more or less of the limb above the knee, is of the same diameter as the upper portion of the leg which is intended to 20 enclose the knee as well as a small portion of the leg below the knee and before the narrowing, shaping, or full-fashioning of the leg of the stocking begins. It is therefore obvious that conventional stockings made as herein described are 28 inadequate since they attempt to enclose the upwardly flaring portion of the limb above the knee in the same tubular diameter that is used for the relatively smaller parts such as the knee and the upper portion of the leg immediately below the knee. Heretofore the elasticity of the knitted stocking, or its ability to stretch, has been relied upon to accommodate the increasing thickness of the limb above the knee, but this has resulted in putting an undue compression on the 35 part of the limb corresponding to the welt, has

placed the threads of the welt under an undue strain which greatly increased the hazard of runs, particularly in view of the fact that the welt is engaged by the garter clasps at at least two points, and has furthermore decreased the coverage of the welt due to the fact that, if

the welt is four inches long before it is stretched around the leg, it naturally is reduced to about three inches when it is stretched, thus tending to expose the limb above the welt particularly in times when short skirts prevailed.

This defect has been recognized heretofore and some attempts have been made to remedy the same as illustrated in the patent to White No. 450,654 of April 21, 1891, the patent to Goodman No. 2,051,167 of August 18, 1936, as well as the patent to Margerson No. 2,073,560 of March 9, 1937, but it is noted that all these patents 55 attempted to overcome t e difllculty by giving the welt of the stocking more elasticity or capacity to stretch than the rest of the leg of the stocking, either by making longer stitches, or by progressively decreasing the tension on the yarn as the upper end of the welt is approached. 5 While this expedient may have helped somewhat,

I have found that the maximum amount of added elasticity or capacity to expand which can be imparted to the welt by these methods is still not sufficient to produce a welt which would fit the enlarged portion of the limb above the knee without shrinking, compressing the limb, or over-stretching the threads and weakening the construction. Furthermore, the expedient of lengthening the stitches or varying the tension, while adding somewhat to the expansibility of the welt, nevertheless produced only a fixed amount of added expansibility so that the welt was not capable of being varied to accominogate the greatly varying thicknesses of the 2 My invention contemplates a new welt construction and a new method of making the same, whereby welts in general can be produced with the upper diameter of the welt always greater than the lower diameter thereof and the diiference between the lower and upper diameter of the weltvaried so as to decrease or accentuate the upwardly flaring character of the welt.

In the accompanying drawing:

Fig. 1 represents a plan view of the welt of a stocking made according to my invention, the same being shown flat or before it is folded upon itself and seemed.

Fig. 2 represents a fragmentary side elevation of a stocking provided with a welt embodying my invention.

3 represents a section on line 34 of Referring to the drawing in which like refer- 40 ence characters indicate like parts, I designates the upper portion of the leg of a stocking which covers the portion immediately below the knee, the knee itself, and a small portion of the limb above the knee. The upper edge of the stocking merges with the welt portion 2 which is of a generally heavier or stronger knit than the portion i and which, according to the conventional practice, was of a uniform width equal to the width of the stocking as shown by the dotted lines 3 and 4. The welt portion itself is usually provided with a fold line about the middle thereof, and the fold line can either be plain or decorated with a picot edge 5 or the like. After reached.

that, the welt is doubled upon itself and the upper edge 6 thereof is united to the body of the welt approximately along the line I thus leaving a portion 8 of the welt which is in the nature of a, single thickness, whereupon the leg proper is then knit at a point beginning about the line 9 downwardly. A stocking having a welt as herein described, which welt is defined by the lines 3 and 4 as to width, would represent the conventional stocking now inuse.

In order to provide an upwardly flaring welt I start the uppermost edge 6 of the welt with the same number of needles as I ultimately intend to use in the leg portion proper I and in the exposed welt portion 8 and I gradually increase the number of needles until the fold line 5 of the welt has been reached. I then decrease the needles in the same proportion in which I increased them in knitting the welt from the line 6 to the line 5 until the line 1 has been I have not deemed it necessary to show the mechanism or the method for decreasing the width of the fabric since this can be done in any conventional narrowing method and by means of any conventional narrowing points such as are shown in several prior patents as for example the patent to Veitel of October 11, 1932, No. 1,882,202. I then proceed with knitting the welt margin portion 8 to be followed by the knitting of the leg portion 6. In the drawing I have only diagrammatically illustrated the approximate proportion that would appear if the width of the leg from the line it to the line H were fourteen inches and if the maximum width of the welt along the line 5, or from the point it to the point it, were to be approximately eighteen inches. This, however, is only an illustration to represent the form or shape that the welt would assume, since it would be obvious that ii I increase one needle per course I would get less of a flare than if I increased two needles per course and more cf'a flare than if I increased one needle every two courses, and so forth.

In carrying out my invention I prefer to knit the welt portions, that is, from the line 6 to the line 9, on a separate machine adjusted for the purpose and which can be used for knitting flaring welts according to any predetermined sliding scale of adjustment. The welt is then transferred to a conventional leg knitting machine for knitting the leg in the usual manner. After the leg 5 has been knit, the welt is folded along the line 5 and the edge 6 thereof is stitched along the line 1 and finally the welt and the leg are seamed into their tubular condition.

Due to the inherent elasticity of the knit fabric, it would only be necessary for me to knit my flaring welts in perhaps three or four different sizes andgive these sizes standard markings whichare calculated on the basis of measurements of various type of limbs, so that, the purchaser, having oncebought a stocking having the welt which has the adequate fit, can reorder the particular type of stocking by its particular designation. Thus, assuming that onthe perfect limb the diameter of the limb at a point, say, four inches above the knee, is only one inch greater than the diameter of the limb immediately at the knee, the upper edge of the welt would be made to have a diameter greater by one inch than the leg of the stocking will have at the knee, and this stocking would be designated as number 1, or A, or some similar designation. Assuming the maximum thickness of the limb at about four inches above the knee to be five inches greater than it is at the knee, then the welt will be five inches greater at its upper diameter than the diameter of the leg of the stocking at the knee, and this stocking vivlguld be designated as number 5, or F. or the l e.

With an upwardly flaring stocking welt such as illustrated in the drawing and hereinabove described, it will be seen that the welt will not be unduly stretched and shortened due to the thickening of the limb corresponding thereto; that the limb will be free from compression and discomfort; and that the life of the welt is prolonged due to the fact that the threads thereof, which are engaged by the garter clasp, are not taut when'tensioned.

While I have illustrated the preferred manner for accomplishing my invention, namely, by making the welt on a special machine and then transferring it onto the full-fashioned leg machine, I want it understood that my invention resides primarily in the provision of a greater number of stitches or wales at the top of the welt than is found at the lower edge of the welt where it merges into the upper portion of the stocking regardless of how this differential in number of wales is-accomplishe d.

'Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

The method of knitting a stocking welt of the type which is folded upon itself to form a double thickness, which consists in starting the upper edge of the welt with the same number of needles that are ultimately to be used in the hitting of the upper edge of the leg of the stocking which merges with the lower edge of said welt, gradually increasing the number of needles and thus increasing the width of the welt until the center or fold line of the welt is approached, gradually decreasing the number of needles and thus decreasing the width of the welt in the same proportion in which it was increased until the lower edge of the welt which merges with the upper edge of the leg of the stocking isreached, knitting the leg of the stocking and finallyfolding the upper edge of the welt on, and stitching it to the lower edge of the welt.

W ILIAM'TAIT. 

